Blizzard's guide to guild advancement
by Mathew McCurley 
Jan 21st 2011 at 6:00PM
If you just want a refresher course on guild advancement and rewards, or if you are just learning about this stuff for the first time, the Blizzard guide is a great resource. Check it out here.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Necromann Jan 21st 2011 6:19PM
If you need to ask someone how WoW works, why not ask the guys who made it?
Guttsu Jan 21st 2011 6:37PM
That picture is seeping with awesome sauce.
Maccabeus Jan 21st 2011 6:47PM
yeah, wallpaper version plox?
Eternauta Jan 21st 2011 6:50PM
Agreed.
I wish the uploaded one in 1920x1080 resolution to use as wallpaper.
Whyisretgimped Jan 21st 2011 6:56PM
I'll sum up guild leveling in Cata.
Go raid...
Some might say that you can get guild xp from doing five mans, but Blizz pretty clearly feels five mans are just raid prep, especially heroics. So if you're not in a raiding guild, you have no business trying to level your guild according to Blizzard.
It's a giant screw you to any other type of player they have. Casual players, RPers, people who enjoy crafting and gathering, and people who play in small guilds or groups get screwed. Now I firmly believe that larger guilds should level significantly faster than smaller ones and you should reward players for what they do.
They made guild leveling so one dimensional that it's basically just a bonus for raiding guilds. Since raiding is already a well established aspect of WoW, guild leveling falls pretty flat. Easily the single most disappointing facet of Cata.
Whyisretgimped Jan 21st 2011 7:10PM
This guide is also massively lame. It only really gives the bare basics of the system. Why don't they say how much guild xp you get per boss? How much guild xp you get per raid boss? How much does it scale up or down based on the level of the dungeon vs. the level of the player?
Like everything else that Blizzard has done with guild leveling, this guide falls very short of what's needed.
trefpoid Jan 21st 2011 7:15PM
But I dunno, I mean, the whole guild achievements thing is complicated for small guilds, like crafting like 1k epics and making all those flasks.. but getting those guild perks isn't hard at all. I've seen guilds with 90 members at level 12.. My guild has 12 active members and we are almost level 6. It's not like we won't cap the level someday and get all perks. So It's not all that bad :D It can be improved though, and I'm sure Blizz will figure something out.
humperdinck Jan 21st 2011 7:16PM
My guild has yet to down a single raid boss and we manage to hit the guild exp cap every day.
foxish.sunrise Jan 21st 2011 7:28PM
I don't know where you're getting the idea that only raiding guilds can get competitive guild experience. The vast majority of my guild's experience gains have been through 5 mans (normal and heroic) and people doing their dailies. We're at level 11 right now, about to hit 12. Even Paragon (who just took the world first heroic Sinestra kill, in case you're out of the loop) is only a level 12 guild. It looks to me like every guild who puts in the effort, whether through raiding, running 5-mans, or just doing dailies can level their guild at almost the same rate. There's certainly no super secret fast track for hardcore raiders.
Whyisretgimped Jan 21st 2011 7:30PM
When your guilds are tired of questing on alts or get bored of five mans, you'll probably stop hitting the xp cap every day. It just doesn't make any sense to only offer guild xp for doing two things, quests and bosses. It's a built in way to make the guild leveling system extremely uninteresting.
Why don't you get guild xp for leveling professions, crucial for the operation of a guild? Why don't you get guild xp for creating items like making the guild enchants or potions? Maybe get guild xp when a guildmate wears a piece of gear you've created? Why don't you get guild xp for acquiring recipes that will be particularly helpful to your guild? Why don't you get bonus guild xp for questing or getting PvP kills together? Why not get guild xp for killing level 85 mobs, since there is zero motivation to kill mobs at 85?
The bottom line is that they could have made the guild leveling system so much more robust and instead it just falls flat and ends up being extremely one dimensional.
omedon666 Jan 21st 2011 8:36PM
Whyret: I feel the need to comment, since I accidentally upvoted you, intending to just downvote and ignore you.
My guild is small, tight, friendly, social and can't/won't raid. We are perfectly happy that way, and are ecstatic at the implementation of GXP/Grep, because we're mature enough to accept that we will and should move slower than larger, "raidy" guilds.
A little honesty, and a clear mirror go a long way. Stop using other metresticks (that's Canadian for yardstick) to measure your own gameplay.
The guild advancement system is well designed as "an eventuality from playing WoW as part of a community", it's fine, and I'm glad Blizzard is sticking to their guns and holding the line on this issue.
omedon666.livejournal.com
Whyisretgimped Jan 22nd 2011 7:25AM
Omedon, if you actually read my post you'd see that I'm criticizing the rate at which guilds gain xp, but how they get it and how slanted it is towards raiding guilds. I am in a small casual guild and I have no problem getting levels slower than a large guild.
I do have a problem only getting levels from doing raid related activities. I also have a problem with how one dimensional raid xp is. They could have made it a far deeper, more interesting game mechanic, and instead, basically made it auto xp for raiding guilds and suffer through repetitive crap for everyone else. I'd really like to have a reason to level professions, make potions, do archeology, kill mobs, and other things at 85 which have no point to them right now.
Giving guild xp for these kinds of things could have made a far more three dimensional aspect of the game then they are now. Blizzard had a opportunity to really improve endgame at 85 and make it a whole new experience then it was in previous expacs.
Instead, 85 is just a tacked on bonus to the only things you could ever do at 85, PvP and raids.
Mr. Tastix Jan 21st 2011 8:05PM
I've got a tip for Blizzard: Remove guild levels altogether.
They don't promote new guilds at all. Why bother making a new guild, even if it's in the best niche in the entire game, if some idiots going to come along and go "not level 25, don't wanna join".
When there's hundreds of level 25 guilds who is really going to want to join a new guild? It doesn't matter how much skill or how nice your players might be, a level 1 guild is basically like having 0 GearScore now.
Totemer Jan 22nd 2011 2:34PM
Has anyone ever thought to ask blizzard if that did this intentionally. I mean maybe they ARE trying to reduce the vast number of insignificant guilds out there. It would in the end reduce the required in game assistance if we all had friends to help with our problems I think. Just a thought.
Mr. Tastix Jan 22nd 2011 4:36PM
I believe the original purpose of the levelling system was to add both an interesting factor to guilds and to encourage people to not just leave guilds on a whim and instead try to be a little social with the one you're in.
This doesn't change the fact that the entire system is flawed, however. There are guilds out there whose only goal and purpose is to get to level 25 guild and have as many players to do so. I also know that many guilds (with a purpose -- such as raiding or what not) deliberately recruit anyone they can to level their guild up.
This defeats the entire point of guilds. I like the perks - the perks are awesome - but I'd rather not have them if it means they kill innovation.
TypicalJeff Jan 21st 2011 8:34PM
As someone who has started their own guild on different server and different faction it kinds blows. I can't get people into the organization due to not having the levels/perks. We have very little in the way of membership and I imagine that I won't be able to bolster the ranks until I've got characters at level cap.
Scalability? Please. :( I feel as though Blizzard just would rather not have someone start a guild, or what I want, a new community on a server the organic way.
Eliandor Jan 21st 2011 9:50PM
This is one the two primary issues I see with the guild leveling system.
1. Starting a new guild is not quite the same as starting a new character. So much can be shared from a main, or you can forego the boosts to just play the new one "as it should be" from level 1. I do not see why this should apply to guilds. This also leads to the second issue.
2. What happens to a level 85 social/casual player or an RPer that does not raid and has a guild collapse? What happens when some IRL issue results in the guild member being booted from the guild? You can join another guild, sure.. even a level 25 guild, but then how do you build guild reputation if you've done all the quests that seem required for it? The "guide" says very little about how much reputation is gained or what a player can do to gain reputation once they've exausted the questing. If you want to help a new guild by earning Revered and having your achievements count, how do you do so?
While smaller guilds can level at a reasonable pace (the one I'm in is doing so) there seem to be so many issues beyond just the guild leveling speed that do not have answers at this time. Blizzard saying "We want to keep you in the game for as long as by dangling this realistic looking plastic carrot" would be very close too the truth from my perspective.
Amaxe Jan 21st 2011 9:51PM
I find the comments on the blizz guide interesting. So far, (haven't finished yet) it seems the majority express dissatisfaction over the way leveling and rep is done.
Wonder if we will see more changes in the future.
Darkdust Jan 21st 2011 11:29PM
Agreeing with the folks pointing out that this will only stifle the creation and growth of new guilds. I even find myself falling into the same line of thought: "well I don't want to join them, they are several levels behind...", much less even beginning to consider starting a new guild.
Amaxe Jan 22nd 2011 11:14AM
Yes. I have a vanity guild for convenience, but when I compare what I lack (it is a level 1 guild) on Shadow Council (RP-PVE) to a level 11 guild an alt on a PvP server belongs to, sometimes I wonder if I should just join a megaguild for the perks.
I don't want to give the impression I want Blizzard to give my vanity guild things other people have worked for of course. It's just that some of these features are so advantageous that it really does penalize small guilds that are real guilds, and not like mine.